When we awoke this morning Dave went up on deck to do a small repair to the dingy davit. He heard a buzzing and looked up to see this:
200 bees (yes Melissa later counted the dead bodies) had decided to start making a nest on Apsaras’ arch. Dave came running back inside and closed all the portals as he is quite allergic to bee stings – having stepped in not one, but two bees nests over the course of his life. We carry an epi-pen just in case he gets stung. We radioed Wanuskewin and warned them not to come over. They said that they too had a few bees but that they weren’t too bad. We suspect their bees were just a few strays from our rapidly forming nest. Dave’s allergy means Melissa had to go up on deck and deal with them. We had some Raid aboard and Melissa shot the nest with the spray and then ran back inside slamming the hatch shut behind her. She managed to kill about 100 bees.
Alas there were still another 100 to go. After about 30 minutes bees had moved their nest to the traveler. Wanuskewin came over in their dingy and got our dingy pulled over to the side of the boat where there weren’t so many bees. Dave braved the outside as they didn’t seem to be all that aggressive and managed to hop into the dingy. Melissa shot them again with the raid before hopping into the dingy with Dave (note the dingy with Dave in it well away from Apsaras).
Alas one managed to sting her – though it wasn’t a deep sting and a squirt of Afterbite calmed the reaction right down. At this point we headed into town hoping that the bees would be dead when we came back. We managed to land on the beach - though one good wave pushed us sideways and sheared off one of the dingy wheel bolts. Dave later replaced it with no trouble.
We wandered around town for a bit. Holly and Mike have friends with property here and they wanted to go check it out. Apparently someone was trying to sell their property, and they had hired a lawyer to prevent any potential fraudulent sale (property scams are rampant here). So we wandered over to the property and took pictures of the “this property not for sale” signs that the lawyer had put up.
Then it was time for lunch on the beach.
When we arrived back at the boat a few hours later, there was yet another nest forming with the remaining bees. We had bought some stronger spray and this time Melissa was able to kill all but two or three bees that later blew away with the wind. Meanwhile, Dave, Holly, and Mike went for a snorkel while Melissa swept up the bee debris so that there wouldn’t be any risk of Dave accidentally stepping on a carcass and being stung.